I saw a news clip somewhere. Brad Pit and wife Angelina Jolie are spearheading a massive campaign to stamp out rape in war zones. There is a lot of support from the well dressed people at conventions, of course. Who could/would defend it? I don’t understand why the media tries so hard to sanitize it. Why do we not call out these cowards with every humiliating and demeaning phrase that was ever written? They are the lowest of the low. A man’s own mother should spit in his face for this. Held down by his father if necessary. They should be disinherited and disowned with malice. Anything they ever said should be disregarded. George Washington ordered that a wooden cross mark the site of Benedict Arnold’s grave because he didn’t want his name commemorated in brass or stone. As I understand it. The family, to this day, does not mention his name. I think this sums up the sentiment.

Take away any possible status that could possibly exist and I think the problem will be exponentially diminished.

There has been a lot of talk about these so called bucket lists lately. Things that you must include on your bucket list. I think the point has been missed. Perhaps appropriate and inappropriate regrets makes more sense. I should have nailed that man or woman? A terrible inappropriate regret. How about travel? Must we see every site with our own eyes? I’m not crazy about traveling. For myself, I like to have some reason to go. I want to retire in a place where me and my buddies work on custom cars all day and have rock/blues jam sessions all night. That is a place want to see.

I think a regret for me would be never owning a Gibson Les Paul. I have been shopping for years. I know a lot about them. The finish, the choice of pickups, accessories. If I had $4k-$20k sitting cold in a bank it probably wouldn’t be an issue. I know I will probably only have one. So I entertain myself by trying to get the best value I can. It’s getting close.

I saw a youtube video the other day. This eight year old girl was shredding a guitar better than Eddie Van Halen and I almost gave up playing. Then I saw an older youtube of her’s and I realized I play about as well as this child when she was about seven. Not a whole lot more encouraging. But this thought of quitting has disturbed me. Why would I do such a thing? Why would I even think of it? I didn’t start to play to compete with her. I have done my own thing with music every day since I started. I have been taught almost nothing. I have had little contact with musicians over the years. My interest must literally sustain itself and that’s OK.

I seems to come back to the old expression that says it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. Now the journey is a big question I will dig into at a future post because there is a lot of places you don’t need to go. Put some thought into where you want to go. I believe you will find it’s as much of a philosophical journey as physical travel. The Americans call it the pursuit of happiness.

I think I mentioned Google trends before. I have been experimenting with it for a while. It is amazing for comparing general interest in subjects over time. They use a 10 year graph for everything. Google allows you to compare up to 5 search terms at a time and change individual ones to suit.

As a Sport, we are up against it in terms of popularity. We do beat out a few Sports. In complete seriousness they included: Alligator wrestling, Turtle Racing, Cockroach Racing, Camel Racing, Bicycle Polo, Cow Racing. Actually the Camel Racing had me worried but you get the Idea. A few Sports we didn’t beat include: Base jumping, sky diving, curling, Beer Pong, Mini Golf, Dodgeball. Tough competition.

Also interesting is neither Objectivism or any of the Sports I mentioned beats a general Philosophy or Politics search query. As sports, Politics and Philosophy in general crush Objectivism and novelty Sports. You mentioned Chess, It compares well with Politics/Philosophy, beating them by only about 50% except during major elections. Now if you compare Sports like Football, Hockey, Baseball. Football scales at 75%, Baseball and Hockey hit 10-20%, and Politics and Philosophy are 2-3%, We don’t do well against the big boys. Football is definitely where we want to be but we are a few levels below that. Before we can go for power we have to beat Beer Pong and start competing with Politics/Philosophy head to head. Perhaps beating Chess is a logical goal.

One other thing. Politics and Philosophy in general have almost identical interest, Following each others peaks and valleys. They go together. I think we should be aiming for that level of interest right away.

Juggling statistics is very interesting to me. I could do this part. Also, there is a little Math, Psychology, and card play. It’s a lot to do at once but the payoff could be huge.

Charles Ponzi was a small time hustler. The only image of him appears to be a mugshot with a number plate hanging around his neck. There are other descriptions of ponzi schemes out here. I won’t try to copy them. It is only the philosophical implications I am interested in. I think warnings against ponzi schemes should be written into the constitution. That would of course leave the government body culpable if they engaged any. There seems to be an interesting difference between the nature of government and the nature of business here. The government body can’t use methods designed for business. The government body will never make a profit so it can’t use methods designed to make a profit. It will crash. At the same time. Business can’t use methods designed for government. It will also crash and with even harsher consequences to the perpetrators.

People that create and run ponzi schemes work every hard to ultimately crash and burn as only they can. Someone smart enough to set up a ponzi scheme, as dumb as they are, is smart enough to figure out the consequences. It’s hard to think of our tax system as a small time hustle, it’s so big. However, that’s what it basically is. What do we do with hustlers? We auction their shoes to repay their victims.

I missed this article when it first came out. It seems there was not very much interest. I know the feeling. I will accept “jettison the constitution” as a point of view. I do not agree. It is not that simple. The problems with the country and the world were not caused by the USA constitution. The flaws in the document could not be avoided. The original constitution was so important that I believe the founding fathers made some hard choices and hoped things would be improved in the future. Many of these improvements have not yet happened but that is no reason to completely reject the idea of a constitution.

The USA constitution as it sits may have to be completely rewritten. However, for myself, I will not accept a new constitution unless it is formally accepted and ratified by congress. Until then, I will defend it exactly as it is.

Here’s a guy that might have an idea worth considering. You have to put on your complex abstract hat and keep the tylenol handy but if you could change philosophy at the city level it might actually spread with purpose.

I have been a regular ebay buyer for about the last fifteen years or so. Having a worldwide marketplace has really changed the way I/we buy stuff. I have bought a variety of things over the years. All the parts for a computer, a guitar, a microphone, and the list goes on. Prices so low I didn’t have to compare. It’s fun.

A few weeks ago something happened that never happened before. The price of something I wanted was lower at the hardware store than on ebay. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I checked it several times, there was no mistake. It is a coffee grinder. It’s a good Cuisinart with a hopper. I have one identical and after years of daily use the head of the grinder is just blunt. So we decided to just buy a new one. The prices on ebay were higher than I expected and with the cost of shipping it just put the price point over the top. The hardware store has it’s own in-house shipping so there was no extra cost for it. That made the difference. So, now, ebay sellers, for the first time, have competition. From, of all places, Canadian Tire. It is a wild, wild world.

There has been a lot of interest in North Korea lately. Sure, they have been experimenting and developing nuclear devices. Not good. Weither Kim happily gives up or we have actually put him out of business seems to be a step that will happen soon. He crossed the line you dare not cross. His destiny is set.

So where do we go from here? I have been working on the problem. It occurs to me that we could look at this as a project in need of a creative solution. We don’t know how to fix a country. It’s not a large country and it needs everything from the constitution up. So how do we do it? If we do a really good job it could be duplicated. We need our best minds to think this through. You can’t think of everything in advance but I believe a huge amount the initial thought can be done before much earth is moved. The more efficiently we can set things up the quicker things can be get to a modern standard of utility headed towards privilege for the bulk of the population of North Korea. I think the first thing to do is get the power back on using whatever electrical infrasturcture they find still standing. That will take investment and we will have to figure out the best way to impliment this while protecting individual rights.

To say laws are not created equal would be an understatement. Many are dead ends in themselves. Many make so little sense know one is interested in trying to enforce them. Aside from being a waste of paper they do little to help or destroy our society. These laws are not the problem.

The key laws I refer to are ones like the Sherman anti-trust laws, the laws that say children must go to school or else. Or how about the environmental laws that virtually shut down profitable business. Lack of freedom doesn’t work and is a disgrace to every country. Why not try freedom? Just for the hell of it.

It makes me laugh a bitter laugh. How much money is that? How do “the big they” even calculate such a number? I had to use an exponent calculator. That much money would buy 300 million automobles@$40,000/unit. Interesting, every man, woman, and child in the USA owes the equivilant of a new luxury car. It’s not as bad as I thought.